Morning came. The first rays of sunlight filtered into the room through the paper window lattices, bathing the messy bed with a soft yellow glow. Outside, the street was so quiet that the chirping of birds in the treetops could be heard.  

Rya yawned and stretched her arms lazily, her dreamy eyes shifting to his face. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. Then, she blinked twice, as if not believing what she was seeing before her. 

“...Shun?” 

He grimaced inwardly when he heard her voice.  Well, looks like my time has finally come. 

“Rya, you’re awake?” He lifted his head towards her and smiled awkwardly, the corners of his eyes twitching. “Uh, you see, I can explain.”

“Okay…” She shook her hair loose and stood up with a calm expression on her face. “So, why is Reimiru sleeping on your lap?”  

“Um…as for ‘why’...”

Yesterday after Rya had fallen asleep, he made up his mind to sneak out of the room to meet Reimiru in the courtyard. But his conscience, as expected, wouldn’t allow him to take the first step out of the door. So there he was all night, stepping back into the room in shame, shaking his head at his indecisiveness and returning to the door, then cursing silently at himself and retreating back into the room. And apparently Reimiru also had enough of his moral dilemma, because she showed up at the doorstep instead. 

“W-what—achoo!—took you so long?” Reimiru hissed, hugging her arms over her well-shaped breasts for warmth. He wouldn’t be surprised if her teeth started chattering. 

“Uhh, so…why do you want to meet me in such a clandestine manner?” he hesitatingly asked, forcing his eyes to look at her flushed face. 

“Clandestine? What do you mean?” she protested. “I just told one of my ladies to inform you to come see me in the courtyard because I forgot to ask you for the deposit.” 

His eyes widened in surprise. “D-deposit?” 

“Of course, it’s a requirement for every guest staying overnight in the Dragon Gate Inn to pay up front one gold ingot as a depo—a-a-achoo!” She sneezed again and rubbed her hands up her arms. “If not, how e-else am I going to make sure that none of my guests will run away without paying?”

“You could have just said so in your note!” He took out the slip of paper and pointed at the sentence. “If you write it like this, how am I going to know what you want to meet me for?” 

“I—” She leaned in closer to read the note and gasped. “T-that Fu Xia, I’m so going to kill her! This isn’t what I wanted her to write, I swear!!”

“S-shhh!” He hastily looked back into the room and heaved a sigh of relief upon seeing Rya was still asleep. “Alright, I’ll pay the deposit. Why don’t you come inside first? It’s cold outside, isn’t it?”

“T-thanks…” Reimiru quietly entered the room and closed the door behind her. Shun lit a new candle, providing some illumination and warmth while he searched for the allowance Shihime had left them. “One gold ingot, right?” He opened the cloth pouch and tipped it over. Three gold ingots fell into his palm, and he handed her one. “By the way, how much is one gold ingot worth?”

“Hmm, an average person can probably eat for three days with a gold ingot…” She gave him a quizzical look. “You’re from the Kingdom of Arcadia, aren’t you? You don’t know how your own money works?” 

He shrugged. “I didn’t have the currency of the Kingdom, so…” 

What he meant was that he didn’t have the chance to interact and learn about the Kingdom’s currency before he was forced to escape from the Pacifists together with Rya, but Reimiru seemed to have a completely different idea judging from her astonished face. 

“Oh my, did the Kingdom treat their soldiers this badly?” 

“N-no, that wasn’t what I was trying to say…” 

“It’s okay, you don’t have to hide anything from me.” She took his hands in hers and shook them reassuringly. “Just tell me anything you aren’t sure about this world, and I’ll do my best to help you out.” 

“N-no, I’m really not…” He paused. Wait, isn’t this the perfect opportunity to obtain more information about this world? I’ve so many doubts in my mind, like Rya’s magic and the Pacifists—especially that silver-haired girl with crimson eyes… “I mean, if you’re willing to, I’ll gladly take you up on your offer.” 

They sat down on the bed, careful not to make too much noise in consideration of Rya. Shun cleared his throat quietly. “Reimiru, how much can you tell me about the magic of this world? Um, in particular, can you explain how Rya uses magic with the help of her necklace?” 

“Magic, you say…” She closed her eyes shut for a moment before opening them and staring at him directly. “How much do you know about magic, Shun?”

“Hmm…” He tried to recall what Rya and the (shudder) divine manuscript mentioned. “It requires a certain ‘life force’ to activate, and there’s the existence of elemental magic which are separated into a number of ‘tiers’, though I’m only familiar with fire magic.”

Reimiru nodded her head. “Well, I’d say you already have the gist of the Ancients’ power. What you call ‘life force’ is in reality the spirits of the Ancients—like those will-o’-wisps that appear over the Qing River running through Shangri-La. We can channel their spirits and draw on their residual magic.” 

“...er, that is quite a lot to take in.” 

“Essentially, what we call ‘magic’ now is simply the memories of the Ancient’s power that still reside within their spirits—a mere imitation of the Ancients, but still extremely powerful and valuable in this world.” Reimiru nodded towards the sleeping Rya. “Rya’s necklace, the Collier en Argent, is a special catalyst that when activated with an amount of ‘life force’, allows the user to quickly accumulate and manipulate magic by their own will. At least, that’s how it’s rumoured to work.” 

“Rumoured to?” Shun pursed his lips in thought. “That reminds me, Shihime also used that phrase when she saw the necklace…does that mean that you don’t know how the necklace actually works?” 

“Those who know how exactly the necklace works are long dead…I doubt Rya herself knows a lot about the necklace too.” she rejoined, shrugging her shoulders. “As a matter of fact, the very existence of the necklace was thought to be a myth up until recently.”

“A myth?” he asked, surprised.

“Mm-hmm, it wasn’t until the Elysian Empire came to be that the existence of the Collier en Argent was made known to the continent.” Reimiru glanced at Rya and sighed quietly. “And it was likely then that the Pacifists set their eyes upon the Empire and plotted its downfall.” 

“But I don’t get it…isn’t the Pacifists at its core an anti-war movement? Why will they be interested in magic? Not only that, why do they seek to topple countries and overthrow governments?” 

She remained quiet for a long moment, the wavering candlelight illuminating her slitted eyes. 

“...Reimiru?”

She inhaled deeply and let out a long sigh. “Sorry, I was caught up in my own thoughts.” 

“O-okay, so about the Pacifists—”

She silenced him with a shake of her head. “Shun, you know that you’re asking something that shouldn’t be asked, don’t you?” she said slowly, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Especially in Pacifist territory.” 

He gulped. “Reimiru, I—”

“I’m feeling tired, can I rest here for a while?” She rested her head on his shoulder. 

“Eh? W-w-wait, you can’t sleep here…!”

“…so as you can see, Reimiru is now sleeping on my lap,” Shun said with a self-satisfied smile. “It’s not my fault, no, not at all.” 

Rya narrowed her eyes and sighed. “Then, you can wake her up now, right?”

“Wake her…um, y-yeah, I was going to do that before you woke up,” he murmured, feigning innocence.